Charles Duke

(redirected from Charlie Duke)

Duke, Charles

Born Oct. 3, 1935, in Charlotte, N.C. American astronaut, lieutenant colonel of the USAF.

Duke graduated from a college in St. Petersburg, Fla., and received the degrees of bachelor of naval science from the US Naval Academy in 1957 and master of science in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. He served at US Air Force bases in Georgia and Texas and then at the Ramstein air base in West Germany. After graduating in 1965 from a school for training pilots for space exploration, he worked at that school as a designer of control systems. In 1966 he joined a group of astronauts at NASA. Duke was an alternate to F. Haise, the pilot of the lunar landing module of spacecraft Apollo 13.

On Apr. 16-27, 1972, Duke, J. Young, and T. Mattingly made a flight to the moon on the spacecraft Apollo 16, Duke being the pilot of the lunar landing module. The module with Duke and Young on board made a landing on the moon in the region of the Descartes Crater on Apr. 21, 1972. Duke spent 71 hours and 2 minutes on the moon, during which he made three excursions totaling 20 hours and 14 minutes. The exploration program included searches for traces of volcanic activity on the moon. Duke and Young moved about the surface of the moon in a lunar rover.

Peter Moreland, who coedited the book, said the response had been overwhelming, with editorial contributions not only from past and present parishioners, but also from Apollo astronauts Charlie Duke and Eugene Cernan, and golfer legends Jack Nicklaus and Peter Alliss, who were friends of former priest Father Paddy Roche.

Prominent guests present on the occasion included Alauddin Alaskary, deputy foreign minister for protocol affairs; ASE President Dumitru-Dorin Prunario; Charlie Duke, an Apollo 16 astronaut, who spent three days on the moon; and several internationally renowned space explorers like Taylor G.

Three men who followed in Armstrong's footsteps, Buzz Aldrin and veterans of Apollo 14 and 16, Edgar Mitchell and Charlie Duke, were reunited last week in Birmingham at an event at the Metropole Hilton at the NEC.

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden regarding the ownership of early space exploration mementos and artifacts: "Earlier today, I had a good meeting with former Apollo astronauts Jim Lovell, Gene Cernan, Charlie Duke, Rusty Schweickart and other representatives of former astronauts and agency personnel, where we discussed how to resolve the misunderstandings and ownership questions regarding flight mementos and other artifacts.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.